TacticsConsort @ TacticsConsort @yiffit.net

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Joined

2 yr. ago

Yeah. I'll take minor hypocrisy any day of the week when the alternative is behaving like the russians do in Ukraine.

I mean yeah, between Gaza, Republicans managing to push shit through the Supreme Courts and blocking Ukraine aid, and the fact that Trump is STILL somehow avoiding facing any consequences for his actions beyond fines that aren't even an inconvenience to him...

But mostly Gaza right now. It's blowing up every media outlet, it's incredibly easy to see that Israel is going way beyond all reasonable boundaries of retaliation, and it's completely impossible to ignore that the US is facilitating Israel's actions, arguably INSTEAD of aiding Ukraine.

Of course, I'm not exactly blind to the fact that two of Biden's biggest failures are 'The Republicans are doing comically evil shit for party-over-country political gain'. Even if him failing to stop them is a point against him, that doesn't change the fact it's pretty clear proof that the Repubs shouldn't be anywhere near a government office.

Full credit to the guy for managing to play 40 sessions like that, though.

Characters rarely, if ever, turn out exactly as they're envisioned- that's part of the beauty of them. As long as you play someone that works well with the team and keeps the party together so everyone can enjoy the adventure, then you've done well. Sure, this guy probably turned out to just feel like a haunted, cold person travelling with the party for no clear reason, but that can still contribute to having a solid party dynamic.

Gosh, how unexpectedly kind of them. I've been meaning to shed a few pounds, the support is appreciated.

Yu'hiss my beloved, long may he meme

Say it with me, kids!

"What air defence doing?"

Lies, that implies that someone didn't dump their Intelligence down far enough to make Investigation unusable /s

Honestly, a profoundly weird experience that I had recently... was playing Dragonstrike (released in 1992 I think?) for DOS, for the first time.

Objectively this game is the very definition of 'limited by the technology of its time'. It's a flight sim made before a mouse was a standard computer accessory. I think the biggest in-game sprites are maybe 50 by 50 pixels. It's outstandingly difficult to play.

And yet... compared to modern games, when I'm playing this, it really just hits me over and over again how they made every single decision correctly. The game has an excellent premise. The storytelling may be simple but it's good. The core gameplay loop is fun, and your kit feels like it's complete and well-made, and there's no stupid gacha mechanics or grinding or oversexualized poster girl or daily quests to try and force you to play X amount of hours. It's just for fun. And it IS fun, despite the most unbelievably dated graphics I've ever seen. If this game was made just a few years later, it would've been outstanding.

Yeah, it's a really weird paradoxical thing, but giving in is exactly why it wasn't enough- it made them feel that there was more they could be getting.

Oh, and I know EXACTLY the trick you need for that sort of combat thing. Your players are getting too many Long Rests, right? One at the end of every session? At the end of every ingame day? Which makes it impossible to wear your players down, right?

What you need are Rough Resting rules. Your players can sleep overnight when they're travelling through somewhere, but as they're sleeping somewhere dangerous, then they can't fully relax and recuperate- sleeping overnight outside somewhere like a dedicated inn or their own homes only gives them the benefits of a Short Rest (and prevents the Exhaustion from staying awake for too long). This means you don't need to cram a ton of fights into one session, because now your players will actually get worn down meaningfully between fights- and you can choose to not give them a full heal until they actually need one- a boss is a LOT more threatening if the party doesn't have all their resources to nuke them on turn 1.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15je74qMiYxSEnF43zp2UkEoSk3LqRymMbxruPVGQ-i4/edit

Okay, first and foremost, it's about managing expectations. You're putting yourself in a situation where you CANNOT succeed because you're allowing them to create expectations that are 100% impossible to fulfil- even if you were a perfect DM, if the players want more than perfection, well...

What you need to do is sit down and create a hard list of rules that your players approve of. It's actually fine to ignore RAW in favour of RAI, but consistency is an important part of the game. Decide what houserules you're using, and write them down. Stick them to your DM screen.

Now, secondly, if your players want combat, take a look at that google document I've linked. It has over 400 magic items that I've made, they're mostly well balanced, and a lot of them are combat oriented. Give your players a selection of items, remind them that they only have three attunement slots, and let the items allow them to create strong but varied builds.

Thirdly, if your players want to steamroll stuff, then I have another thing for you- your encounter pacing. DnD is designed around having seven encounters per Long Rest, although not every encounter is meant to be combat (I use 3 combat, 2 traps, 2 RP situations). To satisfy your players more broadly, then use early encounters to fulfil their desire to steamroll some mooks and drain their resources, and then for later encounters, chuck a boss at them, and make that boss charismatic and really good at hitting people with area attacks and repositioning (give him an ability to cleave with his sword if he's not a mage!)- there's your deadly battle.

But more than anything, just manage expectations. Tell them that you'll do your best to give them some battles that let them show off their power, and some more challenging fights that will test their builds and their characters.

It's also just important to remember- the challenge of a DnD fight is in puzzle and strategy. The thrill of a fight is in storytelling and description. If they just want thrilling fights, then honestly? Just don't even track the HP of the boss (do not tell them this under any circumstances or the illusion will be ruined), just keep them standing and throwing out flashy attacks, taking hits and threatening to take the party down, and let them fall when one of the players lands a suitably dramatic attack. Oh and also if the boss is gonna drop any magic items, make sure the boss uses those magic items. Literally no better advertisement for an item than it being used to kick the party's ass

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eFc2qQTY9P3ym9fyMNYHC_mIogpt9kNrOdm5n_yj1cs/edit#heading=h.yxnmrg5im7dh

Behold! Dragon homebrew

I want to lie, shipwrecked and comatose, drinking fresh mango juice~

Oh, a fellow DnD guy, can I interest you in some homebrew?

It's got to be DnD- I don't just play it, I don't just DM it, I've actively studied how it's designed and balanced in order to make content that is better than the official stuff. I've found and ironed out critical flaws in how the game is set up and I've made pieces of homebrew content that are larger than entire books.

This is a hell of a bold claim to make, but I believe that I have come to understand the game better than its own Dev Team.

Yeah, he was one of the last heroes to get added. The devs knew the writing was on the wall so they focused on adding fan-favourites before the game went into 'maintenance mode' and wouldn't get new content, so we have Deathwing and Hogger (and they're both great)

Also yeah there's no level cap on heroes anymore, I have Brightwing over level 200, she's absolutely great

Ironically I found the game had the opposite balance issues before going Maintenance Mode- too much focus on high level competitive play which was getting super ultra hard stomped by Genji and Tracer plus a support. The day our competitive leagues were officially canned, then we got what I vividly recall was the best balance patch ever that made QM and draft league games so much more open-ended and fun to play.

Surprisingly, yeah. It even gets a once-year balance and bugfix patch. Mostly play Brightwing, Dehaka, Deathwing myself, although Kael'thas is fun too

It may not be the biggest game out there these days, but it's got a good enough playerbase for matchmaking to work consistently, and it's still fun to play

Oh hell. How did I forget the barrel. That might be the biggest moment of this of all time. That barrel tortured me for weeks

Shoutout to Brutal Critical being the worst feature in the entire game for having minimal mechanical impact (sure it hits hard when you crit, but you have no way to boost crit rate outside Reckless Attack and the chances are still dreadful) and taking up no less than THREE levels on the core barbarian template.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eFc2qQTY9P3ym9fyMNYHC_mIogpt9kNrOdm5n_yj1cs/edit

Anyway, try this on for size! It's a pretty big homebrew, but so long as you take it one step at a time it should all be balanced and make good sense

Slight exagguration, true, but I wouldn't want to overexplain things to random guys without being invited. (Also the lifesteal on her attacks is only if you took both the Inner Fire and Ancient Flame talents at their respective levels)

Tbh I didn't truly realize how deeply fucked the class balance was until I started making a really really big homebrew that required me to build and balance eight classes (operating on the personal principle that since it's a team game, all the classes should have roughly equal impact).

This philosophy right here is the fucking devil when it comes to designing co-op games

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards

(I can link you my big homebrew if you like to play DnD 5e, by the way)